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But it is not, in our view, as an attribute that this freedom
is present in the First. In the light of free acts, from which we
eliminate the contraries, we recognise There self-determination,
self-directed and, failing more suitable terms, we apply to it
the lesser terms brought over from lesser things and so tell it
as best we may: no words could ever be adequate or even
applicable to that from which all else- the noble, the august- is
derived. For This is principle of all, or, more strictly,
unrelated to all and, in this consideration, cannot be made to
possess such laters as even freedom and self-disposal, which in
fact indicate manifestation upon the extern- unhindered but
implying the existence of other beings whose opposition proves
ineffective.
We cannot think of the First as moving towards any other; He
holds his own manner of being before any other was; even Being we
withhold and therefore all relation to beings.
Nor may we speak of any "conforming to the nature"; this again is
of the later; if the term be applicable at all in that realm it
applies only to the secondaries- primally to Essential Existence
as next to this First. And if a "nature" belongs only to things
of time, this conformity to nature does not apply even to
Essential Existence. On the other hand, we are not to deny that
it is derived from Essential Existence for that would be to take
away its existence and would imply derivation from something
else.
Does this mean that the First is to be described as happening to
be?
No; that would be just as false; nothing "happens" to the First;
it stands in no such relationship; happening belongs only to the
multiple where, first, existence is given and then something is
added. And how could the Source "happen to be"? There has been no
coming so that you can put it to the question "How does this come
to be? What chance brought it here, gave it being?" Chance did
not yet exist; there was no "automatic action": these imply
something before themselves and occur in the realm of process.
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